When and why US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo told CEOs of Microsoft, Google and other US companies to buy chips from Intel – Times of India

The mounting troubles of chip giant Intel may be a nightmare for the Biden administration as well. Reason: Intel has been the poster boy for the US Chips Act announced by the US President Joe Biden government in 2022. Intel is the single biggest recipient of federal money from the CHIPS Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at making the United States less reliant on Asia for the tiny electronics that power everything from cars to iPads. Intel is also the sole recipient of a new $3 billion government contract to make advanced chips for the US military.
The Biden administration is now said to be facing mounting pressure to revitalize the US semiconductor industry, with a particular focus on Intel.
According to a report in New York Times, at an annual gathering of tech executives and billionaires in Sun Valley, Idaho, earlier this year, US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo met with CEOs from Microsoft, Google and other companies and encouraged them to order their semiconductors from the United States, including from Intel. It was important to make more chips in America, she told them, and Intel, the US chip giant, was critical to that effort.
Raimondo is reported to have made similar requests in meetings and phone calls over the past year. She has, as per NYT report, urged executives at Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, AMD, Marvell Technology and other companies to consider ordering chips from Intel’s US manufacturing plants.

What made US government invest billions in Intel

Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger committed to invest over $100 billion to expand in Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico and Oregon after promises of more than $20 billion in government support. However, Intel’s worsening business has reportedly caused concern in Capitol Hill.
Intel CEO said that investments in the United States would proceed, but the company’s 15,000 layoffs announced earlier this year and delay in opening of a large factory in Ohio is said to have made government officials anxious. Intel announced its quarterly results in August, its profits saw a disastrous fall and it halted a decades-old shareholder dividend. The company’s stock has plummeted more than 20% since the beginning of this year.
When Intel project got standing ovation at the US State of the Union address
Ohio factory is the project that Biden cited in his State of the Union addresses in 2022 and 2023. In fact, Intel CEO was Biden’s guest at the State of the Union address in 2022. In his speech, US President Biden described a $20 billion project that Intel had planned for Ohio as a “field of dreams” and said that the company would invest $100 billion across the United States.
“That would be the biggest investment in manufacturing in American history. And all they’re waiting for is for you to pass this bill,” Biden said to a standing ovation.
In an interview to NYT, Raimondo said that her requests for companies to buy Intel chips were part of a push on behalf of all the US manufacturers. “Of course, I’d be doing everything I can to make sure Intel is successful,” she said. “But really, my message to any of these companies, whether it’s Apple or AMD or Nvidia, Amazon, all of them, is we need your demand for U.S.-made chips.
“We’re going to get it done, and that is not dependent on any one company,” she added.